Charles Alston Cook papers, 1813-1926 (bulk 1860s-1870s).

Abstract: Cook of Warrenton, N.C., and Muscogee, Okla., was a lawyer, planter, active Republican, associate justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court, 1901-1903; and member of the Oklahoma state legislature, 1909-1910. Letters from Cook, principally to his wife Marina Jones Cook, occasionally mentioning political events in Oklahoma, but making little reference to political or judicial affairs in North Carolina; considerable correspondence with and about John Graham (b. ca. 1847), founder of the Warrenton High School, Warrenton, N.C., and his family, chiefly on education topics; scattered letters from Daniel Lindsay Russell (1845- 1908), Republican governor of North Carolina; other personal and family correspondence of Marina Jones Cook and of the Cooks’ children at school in North Carolina and Tennessee; a letterpress copybook used by Cook in his legal work, 1877-1880, and by lawyer E. H. Plumer, 1868-1869; legal papers of Cook; newspaper clippings about family members; and family photographs.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: A 15 November 1903 letter from John Graham comments on John Spencer Basset’s public praise of African American educator, Booker T. Washington.